Purple Patch is the blog from Purple Vision - www.purple-vision.com

Posts categorized "SaaS"

October 02, 2013

For years, we waited for The Raiser’s Edge 8. Eventually, Blackbaud decided it wasn’t
coming after all. Then, last year, they
acquired Convio and we looked forward to a new era of modern digital tools – but
most of these are only available in the US!
Meanwhile, every day we listen to the growing frustrations of
fundraisers trying to integrate new channels and sources of supporter data in today’s
24/7/365, digitally and socially engaged world.

Now, at last, someone has done something … Has Blackbaud finally announced the way
forward for their flagship mid-market product, The Raiser’s Edge? NO – but someone else has! Sort of …

Introducing
AppOmatic

At this year’s BBCON, Omatic Software, well known authors
of great tools such as ImportOmatic that complement The Raiser’s Edge, launched
AppOmatic.

AppOmatic is billed as a whole new way to interface with
your donor data without using The Raiser’s Edge itself. It is freely available
to download and enables RE users to do two main things:

Use the AppOmatic “desktop canvas” – a
different way of viewing and working with the traditional Raiser’s Edge
interface – including files, data and records held outside the system.

Select, download, and deploy ‘apps’ (rather
like Plug-ins) that have been written – for now by Omatic but potentially by other
partners in future – and use these to enhance their own experience of The Raiser’s
Edge

How
does it shape up?

This sounds encouraging and quite exciting. But how helpful
is it really? AppOmatic is similar in concept to the Microsoft Dynamics
Marketplace and Salesforce AppExchange – both highly developed with thousands
of participating partners and tools.
Will AppOmatic dissuade nonprofits from moving to these impressive platform-based
competitors?

We decided to assess AppOmatic against some of the key
issues and limitations of The Raiser’s Edge:

Criteria/Issue

Our Assessment

Comments

1:
User experience and adoption

Will AppOmatic encourage users – in particular digital fundraisers – to
work with The Raiser’s Edge more easily and effectively?

Score:
6/10

The
new AppOmatic interface – with a more dynamic, modern look and feel than RE –
can only help improve user experience. However, at this stage there are few integrations
with best-of-breed tools – such as email marketing, online fundraising or
events tools like Just Giving.

2:
Open Access

Will AppOmatic help the growth of an ecosystem of The Raiser’s Edge
developers?

Score:
6/10

Again,
this move – interestingly driven by Omatic Software rather than Blackbaud
themselves – can only be a good thing. Other developers – for instance
Zeidman Development in the UK – will, hopefully, engage and publish their
apps too.

3:
Multi-channel

Will AppOmatic help The Raiser’s Edge become a multi-channel
solution?

Score:
0/10

Sadly,
AppOmatic doesn’t seem to address this issue.
Omatic has developed and published apps for integration with Twitter
and LinkedIn – but so far there is no evidence of third party apps by authors
of tools like Mailchimp, EventBrite, Constant Contact or Hootsuite, as are
available on the Salesforce and Microsoft marketplaces?

4:
Multi-platform

Does AppOmatic help The Raiser’s Edge become a truly multi-platform
solution?

Score:
0/10

AppOmatic
works on Windows and with Microsoft tablets but it doesn’t extend The Raiser’s
Edge so that users can access their data and system on other platforms, such
as iOS or Android, or on a web browser in a non-Windows environment.

5: Whole-organisation CRM

Can AppOmatic help The Raiser’s Edge become a CRM system rather than
just a donor database?

Score:
3/10

There
are two barriers to The Raiser’s Edge expanding outside of fundraising: user
experience and database structure.

AppOmatic helps with
user experience, and could screen some of the fundraising details from
non-fundraisers.

But AppOmatic
still relies on the underlying data structure of The Raiser’s Edge. This lacks
the extendible, configurable nature of other CRM solutions and, for this
reason, it is limited in its ability to operate beyond fundraising.

Our
Conclusion

Many organisations are considering how and when to move
on from The Raiser’s Edge and those at the ends of the size spectrum are starting
to take this step. Nevertheless, The Raiser’s
Edge remains fit for purpose for many traditional fundraising needs and we
expect it to be around for quite some time, especially in medium-sized
charities without the agility or the budgets of their smaller or larger peers.

For these organisations, AppOmatic is potentially a very
useful development. In the same way that
ImportOmatic has brought real enhancements to fundraising business processes, AppOmatic
may well help extend the life of The Raiser’s Edge - at least until Blackbaud announces the roadmap for its replacement.

To
find out more about AppOmatic and other ways to make the most of your
technology for fundraising we are running a series of complimentary breakfast briefings
and discussions with suppliers and experts entitled “Life after The Raiser’s
Edge”. Sign up for one or all of these
at our website HERE.

June 25, 2013

What comes next for users of the world’s most successful donor database?

Although The Raiser’s Edge remains an integral part of many fundraising operations, our trusted and familiar friend is showing its age and being overtaken by younger rivals better suited to the new age of multi-channel communications.

Only last year Blackbaud confirmed there will be no major upgrade to Version 7. Love it or loathe it, life without The Raiser’s Edge is a big change to contemplate. Here’s an outline of the issues we believe The Raiser’s Edge users need to start considering – both short-term fixes and long-term strategic choices . . .

Where is The Raiser’s Edge today?

The Raiser’s Edge is the world’s most successful donor database used by more than 15,000 nonprofits to raise £billions every year. It was built in the 1980s for a world of paper-based direct marketing, personalised key partnership fundraising, and donations made via cash and cheques. Over the years it has grown to support the many specialised business processes associated with fundraising, and has been supplemented through a series of complementary tools including:

API – an Application Programming Interface – which some clients have used to connect the Raiser’s Edge with their web sites and other online systems.

The focus has been on extending Blackbaud’s product offerings and making them work together, rather than with products and services offered by other suppliers – even when those products and services might be well-liked and offer better features for clients.

What is changing and why is The Raiser’s Edge becoming outdated?

A growing number of Raiser’s Edge users are struggling to achieve integrated, enterprise-wide supporter engagement. These organisations aspire to achieve true multi-channel fundraising, marketing and supporter care. They want a cohesive single customer view that enables them to recognise and respond to supporters with complete knowledge, wherever they choose to engage, including use of best of breed technology from different partners. In addition to this, they want to benefit from cloud-based technologies to reduce the complexity and cost of IT and (literally) mobilise their staff and volunteers by giving them access to systems wherever they need them, close to their supporters where the fundraising actually happens.

These new demands means CRM solutions need to be open, flexible, cost-effective and user-friendly – none of which are really strengths of The Raiser’s Edge.

What does Blackbaud say?

If your organisation shares these aspirations, and you are frustrated by the limitations of The Raiser’s Edge, here’s what Blackbaud announced at its 2012 Conference*:

“play nice with others”Contrary to rumour, there will be no RE8. Instead, Blackbaud aims to make RE7 more open and connective. Whilst this is encouraging, to date this extends mostly to their own products including mobile, merchant services, hosting, finance, advocacy and analytics tools.

“Blackbaud ♥ Salesforce”Blackbaud’s acquisition of Convio in 2012 may have helped to plug some of the gaps in its capabilities for online fundraising, especially the much heralded connector for The Raiser’s Edge and Luminate Online. However, this was promised for Q1 2013 and, so far, there is no sign. Furthermore, the Salesforce-based Luminate CRM system will not be available to clients outside North America because the company is not able to offer global support.

“BBCRM is the next generation”Blackbaud is placing emphasis on its big brother BBCRM product, especially for organisations operating “at enterprise scale”. BBCRM is feature rich and a good option for larger charities looking to upgrade. However, it is a big and complex undertaking with a price tag to match. So far in the UK, only a handful of charities have taken this step. Unless it is simplified, BBCRM does not offer a realistic option for small and medium sized RE users.

Regrettably, The Raiser’s Edge cannot fully support these requirements and Blackbaud has not yet announced a credible alternative. However, there is some evidence of where things are heading …

Online FundraisingOver the years the company has repeatedly acquired rival vendors and has chosen not to fully develop their best products (e.g. Sphere and Common Ground). However, exceptions to this could be the recent acquisitions of Heroix (Everyday Hero) and Luminate (Convio). These are very effective tools for online fundraising and could be even more powerful in combination with the Raiser’s Edge, if they can be well integrated. Both of these products could extend the life of the Raiser’s Edge until a more modern replacement is developed.

Off-the-Shelf CRMBack in 2007, Blackbaud acquired eTapestry, an innovative donor management tool and one of the first SaaS solutions for fundraising. Perhaps because it was ahead of its time, eTapestry was not developed, at least not until now. Blackbaud has dusted it off and is now marketing it as an alternative for customers at the smaller end of the CRM market. It’s low-cost, simple and requires little overhead to set up and use. It certainly won’t do everything that RE can do, but if all you need is a simple accessible database that works, it’s a good option.

Project BluebirdDespite the deafening silence from Charleston about new products, we don’t think Blackbaud has forgotten about its enormous base of medium-sized customers. These are the fundraising charities that rely on RE day in, day out, and who dutifully pay their licence fees. The (as yet unannounced) development plan for this vital market is known as Project Bluebird. In essence, Project Bluebird focuses on the principal tools and features required for donor management and aims to rebuild them using Blackbaud’s “Infinity” platform that was originally developed for its flagship BBCRM product. As a result, the company hopes to create a modern, accessible and cost effective solution that will be an attractive step forward for its middle majority of current RE users. We understand that Project Bluebird is now in pre-beta testing and we look forward to seeing it.

What can you do?

Privately, people at Blackbaud accept that The Raiser’s Edge is approaching the end of its life. Not only is the technology outdated, but also it’s just too big. It has so many features and functions intended for the widest range of clients that finding a single replacement is not feasible. So, we think that Blackbaud’s vision of life after RE will be to encourage users to choose from a range of tools, from the simplest to the most sophisticated and with various combinations of CRM and online fundraising solutions, depending on your need and budget.

So we recommend that you start to think about the technology you will need to support your fundraising over the next five years. Here’s how:

Encourage a debate within your organisation – do you need to do ‘whole-organisation CRM’? Do you need to deliver integrated multi-channel marketing, fundraising and customer care? If the answer is ‘yes’, you need to start moving now. If not, then the Raiser’s Edge may continue to serve your needs.

Think outside the fundraising department and identify the scope of CRM. Reach out to colleagues in communications, policy and service delivery. Consider what teams, data and business processes need to be brought together – and what it all means from the customer’s perspective.

Start to identify long-term strategic options for your technology now, whilst you still have time. Remember the 80:20 rule – today your income is around 80% offline; 20% online but this will reverse in the future.

In the short-term, try out new tools and channels, as appropriate to your current needs, by integrating them wherever you can with your current system. Useful options include:

If you want to hear more on this subject and share your experience with other RE users, we will be holding a series of briefings and discussions, starting with a Breakfast Briefing on Thursday 25th July 2013.

June 02, 2013

At Purple Vision we have worked for ten years advising and supporting hundreds of charities with technology for fundraising, including databases, web sites and related business processes. Today, for the first time, tools exist that enable fundraisers to achieve the long-awaited vision of a 360-degree supporter view – everything you know about each supporter in one place.

We are excited because we believe that the familiar barriers caused by fragmented systems, data silos, manual workarounds and inadequate reporting will soon be a thing of the past. We believe Salesforce offers the biggest single opportunity for every nonprofit organisation and we have produced a paper to explain why. Written by fundraisers for fundraisers who want to understand more about this opportunity, we share our experience and insights into:

September 28, 2012

We’re off to BBCon in Washington
DC. It’s billed as the world’s biggest non-profit fundraising conference, with thousands
of delegates and exhibitors from all over the globe. As always, we’re excited
by the prospect of meeting and learning from the experiences of fundraisers
with different attitudes and solutions – there are always great insights to
bring home and share.

But this year there is an
additional reason to be excited.
Blackbaud, the global technology provider that runs the whole event,
will (we hope) be making a big announcement that will impact every one of the
20,000+ charities that use their flagship product, The Raiser’s Edge.

“What can be so important about a
database” you may ask? Well, it’s more
than that. At Purple Vision we understand
how the tools and techniques you use to support your fundraising have a massive
impact on the ability of your organisation to achieve its mission. The
internet is supporting a fundraising revolution that enables us to build and maintain
relationships with supporters in the online places where they are, and in the
new ways they want to relate to our causes.

So, technology matters. It's the glue that holds your supporter
community together, and enables you to fundraise well.

Blackbaud’s journey to the future

The big story in Washington is ‘Where
next for The Raiser’s Edge?’ Love it or
loath it, “RE” is the world’s leading system for donor management. But it’s built on old technology – it’s good
at doing the chores that we need to turn the wheels of our traditional
fundraising machinery, but it’s not geared for the future. Try linking it to your website, enabling
supporters to build their own pages, or accessing it via mobile devices. Elaborate integrations are often costly,
difficult and inflexible when you want to change something.

So, Blackbaud will obviously be
looking ahead, planning their roadmap of future products in line with the direction
the world is moving. Twelve months ago
they announced that development of The Raiser’s Edge was to be curtailed. In fact, the long-awaited RE version 8 was
cancelled! Curious. Then, in January this year, came the
announcement of the $300m acquisition of Convio, a modern internet-oriented
rival with new ideas and impressive results.
Convio’s solutions are more than databases – they have been built for
the digital age, focusing on transparency and accessibility, and using modern
web-based tools that allow users to connect everything more easily.

A smart acquisition? We thought so. We thought Convio’s Common Ground CRM, built
on the world-class Salesforce platform, was the new Raiser’s Edge, and we said
so. But we were wrong! Last month Blackbaud announced, to the dismay
of many, that they are to discontinue Common Ground. Some said they had ruthlessly killed off the
young pretender; the company described this as a necessary rationalisation of
the many products in their portfolio.

But the Blackbaud management know
what they are doing. Their decision, whilst
unwelcome to pioneering fundraisers already ahead of the curve, was based on
careful analysis and hard thinking. They
know that the only way to protect their market-leading position in the
long-term (and hence their profits and share price) is to retain and delight
the majority of their customer base – in other words, all those still
using The Raiser’s Edge.

Blackbaud appears to have decided
that Common Ground, and indeed the Salesforce platform in general, is not the
best way forward. And yet, with no other
significant product development in the past year, what is their alternative
vision? Suddenly, a vacuum has emerged, which
they must surely fill with their roadmap presentation on Sunday morning?

Speculating is fun

In anticipation of this important announcement,
we have had some fun speculating about what they might choose to do. What will be the replacement for The Raiser’s
Edge? Here are a few of the ideas we came
up with, some fanciful and some less so!

eTapestry

One of Blackbaud’s many acquistions. A fore-runner of online fundraising systems,
this ageing product was ahead of its time … in 2003. E-Tap was never developed beyond basic
functionality, and is currently offered as a simpler and cheaper alternative to
RE. But its advantage is that it does not
rely on somebody else’s technology – it’s a “private” cloud solution, so
Blackbaud gets to keep all the revenue. So,
it might be worth investing a pile of cash to produce a new version of e-Tapestry
as the online successor to RE.

Luminate

By contrast, Luminate, the
surviving big brother of Common Ground, was proudly on display last week at
Dreamforce in San Francisco, despite the fact that it is based firmly on the
Salesforce platform. Blackbaud’s
attitude to Salesforce is difficult to pin down. As recently as July this year the company announced
its full commitment but, just eight weeks later, decided to withdraw Common
Ground globally, and limit Luminate CRM to North America. As a radical alternative, perhaps we are
about to see a new focus on Luminate as Blackbaud’s premium cloud-based
solution? It’s the best all-round
fundraising system out there and it’s built, proven and ready to go.

Project X

That’s a name we made up for an
imaginary new product that Blackbaud experts have been carefully developing in
secret over the past 18 months. Not so far-fetched when you think about it. If true, it would be strategic genius; remove
the main competitor from the field, creating a perfect distraction whilst all
the time working on the replacement. Ta-dah! What has Shaun Sullivan been doing since he (apparently) left
Blackbaud anyway? ;-)

Nothing

Doing nothing is always an option. At least that’s what they tell you in
Strategy 101! And it is an option for
Blackbaud, one that they have been exercising with respect to The Raiser’s Edge
for quite a few years now. RE7 is good
software. Like a second-hand BMW, it
is functional, stable and does 95% of the basics really well. It still looks OK too, but it is not future
proof and, sooner or later, it will need to be replaced. How long can Blackbaud go on without announcing
the path to a credible replacement? The longer this uncertainty persists, the greater the confusion and anxiety for a community that Blackbaud aims to cherish. On behalf of RE users everywhere, please explain your plan.

The Raiser’s Edge 8 – Infinity

The least exciting – but most
likely – outcome is that Blackbaud will retrench to its position twelve months
ago and announce that RE8 is back on the cards.
Their enterprise-level system, Blackbaud CRM, was developed with significant
resources using Microsoft’s .net technology and is known as the Infinity
platform. Originally, it was intended
that RE8 would run on Infinity but snags crept in and this never happened. This
is good solid technology, available in the cloud with an open architecture that
supports integration of data and third party solutions.

Our money is on this last option as
the preferred way forward. We await the answer, and we'll bring you the news and views that matter as soon as we find out.

Purple Vision’s Steve Thomas and
Bertie Bosrédon
will be at BBCon in Washington DC until Tuesday 2nd October. You can find their blog posts at blog.purple-vision.com/ and
tweet updates @purple_vision and @cafedumonde.

August 01, 2012

Although we await the definitive announcement on the product roadmap, each time Blackbaud releases a bit more information, we get to see the emerging shape of things to come.

Last month they announced their commitment to the Salesforce platform for future cloud services, which of course underpins a number of the solutions they acquired with Convio. Now we learn they will be making available some of the de-duplication tools from Luminate in other Blackbaud products. Also, in the coming months The Financial Edge (a Blackbaud accounting solution) will be integrated with Common Ground (the Convio online CRM system). Lots of clues to those products likely to survive the imminent "streamlining"!

We are slightly confused by Jana’s calculation of dates and deadlines. On May 8th CEO Marc Chardon announced three targets of 30, 60 and 90 days. By our reckoning this would mean announcements on Jun 7th, July 7th and August 6th (next week). However, yesterday's announcement appears to be the 60-day target (three weeks late!) and in her accompanying email Jana says there is another 30 days to go to the final target?

Perhaps we’ve got something wrong, but it seems that a month may have gone missing in Charleston?

June 01, 2012

As every Star Trek fan knows, this chilling statement is the rallying cry of the Borg, a race dedicated to incorporating the unique characteristics of everything it encounters.

“Just like Blackbaud”, you may say! But is it? We think the “new Blackbaud” emerging from the merger with Convio is beginning to look more like Convio than old Blackbaud. Who is assimilating whom?

Last week Blackbaud Europe announced its new-look management team, which includes three former Convio managers, two recent hires and only three longstanding Blackbaud staffers. This isn’t the only signal that things are different this time. Back at corporate HQ in Charleston, Convio’s former CEO, Gene Austin, has been appointed to the executive team as President of the Enterprise Customer business unit, and a number of other Convio execs are emerging in key roles in new Blackbaud.

Unlike previous acquisitions, where targets have simply been absorbed into the product portfolio, this time things are different: this time they mean to reinvent the company. But why change the habit of a lifetime?

These people are smart; they are doing this for good reasons. We have discussed previously in this blog how the culture at Convio is very different to old Blackbaud. Open not closed; collaborative not isolationist; modest not proud. In short, Convio is a fresh new organisation, conceived and built in the online social world, and in tune with a new generation of fundraisers. This is the kind of organisation that Blackbaud knows it needs to be like if it is to achieve its ambition to become a billion-dollar company.

It has been said that this cultural difference is a threat to the success of the merger, but we wonder if this was in fact the very reason for it. Blackbaud will achieve the change it needs to make faster and more effectively, not by smothering Convio, but by adopting these vital characteristics and changing itself.

So when can we expect to see more concrete signs of this change, and how will this impact non-profit organisations? The clues are to be found in the various announcements, press conferences and videos that have been released. A few themes are coming through loud and clear:

1. Cloud/Software-as-a-Service

Almost all of Blackbaud’s technologies, and in particular its principal mid-market product, The Raiser's Edge (RE), is based on old client-server technology, and is starting to show its age. In late 2011 the company announced that development of the long-awaited RE8 had been scrapped. Given that Blackbaud has repeatedly stressed its commitment to cloud computing, they clearly had an alternative strategy in mind to achieve this, and Convio brings the know-how to fill this gap.

2. Products

This points to a key role for Convio’s online products and Services in Blackbaud’s future product range, such as Common Ground, Luminate and Team Raiser, and we expect to see initiatives to help migrate RE clients to these new platforms. And there is further evidence - in his video message in early May, CEO Mark Chardon announced a series of challenging deadlines to deliver specific changes in 30, 60 and 90 days. These are fast by any standards, and you can be sure that we’ll be watching out on the days these deadlines expire, ready to bring you the news here at Purple Patch!

3. Collaboration

Chardon and others have also been at pains to stress a new openness – listening, engaging and interacting, rather than just announcing. This has been directed towards relationships with clients, whose satisfaction levels are known to have been slipping in recent years, through a refreshed consultation process. But also we are seeing signs of new behaviours in the way that Blackbaud engages with other professionals in the market, such as digital marketers, system integrators and other software vendors. For example, at Purple Vision, we have had more contact with Blackbaud in the past three months than all the years we have been working with their products.

Just as Apple and Salesforce have pioneered the explosive development of their businesses with open platforms and well organised app exchanges, Blackbaud knows that Convio has grown fast by exploiting the power of innovative independent partners. They understand the concept that involving others in your business is an investment that enhances the attractiveness of the platform, and grows the whole market, resulting in greater value for for everyone.

So, what does this mean for Blackbaud and Convio clients? Many people fear that with fewer suppliers in the market, innovation will be stifled and choice reduced, leading to neglected customer service and scope to increase prices. On the other hand, if you are an RE user, there is precious little on the product development roadmap, and nothing that addresses the opportunities for fundraising in the cloud. But now, with Convio joining the Blackbaud family, you have access to a range of innovative new products and services, delivered not by one monolithic vendor, but by your choice from a network of independent partners.

Time will tell if Blackbaud can boldly go where no-one has gone before. Stay tuned for the next episode!

April 02, 2012

Wouldn’t it be great to find out what people are saying about you on social media – and record those comments to your CRM system? … to automatically create new records on your database for anyone who mentions you on Twitter? … to open a window on a major donor record and see their latest Facebook or LinkedIn update before you go in to meet them?

All of this, and more, is already possible with Salesforce. And, given that the Salesforce Foundation will donate 10 free licences to any charity that applies, what’s stopping you?

What we like about Salesforce is their innovative, entrepreneurial culture that drives them to investigate technology trends and incorporate them into their software. They’re totally focused on “social enterprise” and, with a large network of developers, there’s always someone looking to build applications to extend the functionality of the product, whether that is an integration for Mail Chimp or a special version of the software for membership management or fundraising.

Over the last 18 months we have watched and learned as the capabilities of Salesforce for relationship building have developed, and we like what we see. As a sales and marketing system it performs excellently – so well in fact that we’ve adopted it for our own business. We think Salesforce offers integration with social media tools on a level unmatched anywhere else.

But perhaps you’re not ready to throw out your current CRM system just yet, after all you’ve invested enormous time and effort to get it to where it is, and switching databases is a major undertaking. Point taken! So, instead, we’ve worked out a way to leverage the power of Salesforce for social media without having to go through a total system migration. We’ve developed a concept we’re calling Get the Social Media Edge or GiSME for short.

In this solution we build on our knowledge of nonprofit CRM tools and use Salesforce as an “edge” application. This means it sits alongside your current system and data passes back and forth, keeping you up to date with the latest social media activity so you can make use of this in your relationship building activities. All the power, with none of the pain.

To find out more about how to Get the Social Media Edge for your organisation, please contact info@purple-vision.com.

January 24, 2012

So, one week on from the big announcement that Blackbaud is buying Convio (see our previous post), and people everywhere have been furiously blogging and commenting about what it all means. Some are asking questions, some are showing signs of fear, and some are just plain gossiping! Here are a few we enjoyed:

What we haven’t seen so far is very much serious consideration of what it means for a charity that has a Blackbaud product right now. Here in the UK, that is predominantly The Raiser’s Edge 7, since Blackbaud’s wider range of products (such as Enterprise CRM, BBDM and eTapestry) are less well established.

At Purple Vision, we work every day with clients who use The Raiser’s Edge. Most of our team have known it for many years as client-side database managers and practicing consultants. We’ve put in a lot of hours, and we know it to be a robust, reliable and trusted fundraising database. But we also know that the foundations have started to creak of late, not only with the announcement last year that development of RE8 has been discontinued, but also with the emergence of smart new alternatives. And now that we learn Blackbaud is buying Convio, organisations that use The Raiser’s Edge will be thinking about succession planning for their CRM system. A scary thought, but one that needs to be considered by anyone who is serious about ensuring excellent stewardship as well as real efficiencies.

Although Blackbaud’s product plans are not yet known, it seems clear that they have absorbed their emerging competitor because of their technical know-how; they understand that the future of fundraising lies ‘in the cloud’. This trend is accelerating, and we think it means that RE7 could soon be retired. That’s OK for future clients, but existing customers will need to work out how to replace it. Just think about that for a second; it’s huge! Imagine your CRM system – not just the database, but also the people and processes behind your strategy – taken out of the equation and replaced. And think about the project that will need to be built to support the process – business case, SMT buy-in, trustee engagement and support, scoping, project team, resourcing etc., and then the migration project itself. Are you ready for that? Can you afford not to be?

We’re not trying to be alarmist. Really, we’re not! No matter what size your organisation is, it’s daunting, but not impossible. We work with many nonprofit clients, and can think of a number with projects already underway that this will affect:

One large charity, looking to move up from RE, is not too far down that road – luckily they can stop and reassess now – or at least pause – to see what happens.

Another client is just setting out to integrate its website and operational database with RE. They might want to take a step back and rethink that, as the risk of building a system based on an ageing product is a significant one.

What next then, and how best to proceed? To be honest, it is too early to tell. We recommend that anyone using The Raiser’s Edge should “pull up a chair” and watch as this acquisition (still to be approved by the US authorities) unfolds. The effects on the UK charity market will be real, profound and imminent. At Purple Vision, we’ll be keeping our eyes and ears open and, as always, we will be on hand to help charities that need guidance and support. Your CRM strategy should never, ever, be just about the database. That piece of technology represents your supporter community, the very heart of your organisation. Fail to protect it at your peril!

January 18, 2012

There was surprise and excitement yesterday when it was announced that US nonprofit technology leader Blackbaud will acquire rival software firm Convio. The $300million price tag represents a 49% premium over Convio’s market value, so somebody really wants to make sure the deal goes through!

Few people in the UK have even heard of Convio, which up to now has provided fundraising and CRM solutions in the US and Canada, including 29 out of the top 50 charities. However, last year Convio acquired Baigent Digital, a leading web agency in the UK, and are expected to launch here in the next few months.

So why pay out so much cash to buy out a rival? The simple answer is they had no choice. Blackbaud has not delivered the much vaunted upgrade to its ageing flagship CRM product, The Raiser’s Edge, whereas Convio’s Common Ground, building on the massively successful salesforce.com platform, has become the solution of choice with its modern, cloud-based software oriented to the needs of digital fundraisers and online supporters. So Blackbaud bought Convio before Convio overtook them.

“That’s a shame”, you may say, “Convio never fulfilled its destiny and usurped its rival!” But such is the nature of public companies in the software business. Rumour has it that this wasn’t the first time Blackbaud tried to buy Convio. When faced with an offer they can’t really refuse, boards of directors sooner or later recommend shareholders to sell.

So, what does all this mean? Less choice, perhaps? At the top end of the market there is keen competition for the biggest international clients, and it will be interesting to see how Convio’s new Lumimate system shapes up against Blackbaud’s EnterpriseCRM.

But what about the quiet majority – charities working hard to build positive and beneficial relationships with their supporters? Having supported Blackbaud technologies and clients for many years, at Purple Vision we think this deal could be a good thing, and here is why: Readers of this blog may remember a few weeks ago we reported Blackbaud Marketing VP Jana Eggers explaining on YouTube how the company had abandoned development of RE8, and instead described the company’s various other tools in a kind of mix-and-match solution. That was a sad day for Blackbaud; both the company and its many thousands of customers deserved a lot better. But now the solution that they need may be coming their way after all. Convio’s Common Ground has been described as “Raiser’s Edge in the Cloud”. If this turns out to be true, it could be a tremendous kick-start for digital fundraising, and a great opportunity for fundraisers everywhere.

October 21, 2011

To be precise, more Americans are coming! In the UK we already have dominant CRM solutions from Blackbaud and ASI, and soon they will be joined by US competitor Convio.

Earlier this year Convio bought Baigent Digital, the well-respected UK digital agency focusing on non-profits. Since then we haven't heard much - no doubt they are preparing their plans and products for the UK market. What can we expect when they launch here? Judging from the products and services available to US fundraisers, some very interesting things could be coming our way.

To find out more, we subscribed to Convio's US mailing list and this week a newsletter arrived about their main CRM tool, known as Common Ground. Convio products make use of the powerful SalesForce platform, and with Common Ground they claim that users get straightforward, easy-to-use tools to create, launch and manage fundraising campaigns direct to their social media sites.

A single, integrated solution delivering a true 360-degree view; all securely hosted in the cloud for a fixed monthly fee. No servers to manage, no technology snags and no integration headaches – all you need is a browser and you are away. That is quite a promise!

Watch the video for yourself here. It lasts 6 minutes. This is a tantalising glimpse of how a CRM system should be – we look forward to seeing what it will look like when it becomes available to UK fundraisers. We’ll keep you posted – watch this space.